with Harry the dog | @steintrek

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There are too many beautiful and wonderful cars at the auto show to cover. Besides none of them were breaking news, they’ve all been at the Geneva or Detroit auto shows or “leaked” to auto blogs and magazines.
I took photos of cars that were particularly interesting or I’ve been wondering about. Here’s a few.

Liking the Audi R8 is a no-brainer. But what caught my eye is the paint job for this one. Not the blue, but it is almost a matte finish. Not the matte gray of last years BMW M3 and Hyundai Veloster, but a slightly less matte with metallic paint for some shimmer and pizzazz. The AMG SLS gull wing had a similar finish, which they call satin. I still don’t love it and think it should be reserved for tough trucks and military vehicles. However, it’s an improvement from the M3 matte gray. The first time I saw that I thought to myself, that guy can afford a new M3 but can’t afford to get it fixed and get rid of the bondo?

Who doesn’t love clean Swedish design? I was happy to see a regular station wagon from Volvo, which is pretty much the only thing they ever used to make, with much success. Not the plastic clad pumped up cross country they’ve been selling, but just a regular V60 station wagon. Nice. What I was really trying to take a picture of is the great plate. Notice there is a cut out for my wine, which has a longstem. You can hold your plate and not have to hold your wine. The winner of the Nobel prize for plate design won’t need to travel far to go to Stockholm this year.

The only reason I took a picture of this car is because I stopped in my tracks and thought, oh my God, that is so Japanese. I can see myself in Tokyo going to work in this thing. Apparently it’s going to be on sale here. A Mitsubishi with initials for a forgetful name and it will be $31,000. But it does get 105 miles per gallon.

I really really wanted to love the new Chevy Impala. It’s actually a nice car. And the dashboard is one of the best around, so of course I did not take a picture of it. At 6’2 I try to check the backseats to see how comfortable they would be and the Impala did not disappoint. It shouldn’t, because it is a huge car. Sadly, the car just did not make me tingle. I don’t know why, it is handsome, comfortable and apparently all right to drive. No emotional connection.

This photo is of a line of Audi A8L’s. All with Michigan plates, they zoomed in together and had attractive, well dressed and humorless chauffeurs. This was the Audi executive team. Then they all zoomed out together like sinister synchronized swimmers. I’m not saying Audi sales keep going up because they signed a pact with the devil but if you spell Michigan backwards you get Nagihcim!